Tori Amos

Despite being a darling of the indie music scene since 1989, Tori Amos has not had much of a career in movies. IMDb lists her as having been an actress 42 times, but that’s almost exclusively in her own music videos. That’s fine; not all musicians are actors as well. Stranger, though, is that her soundtrack credits are also largely her own music videos or else TV shows she appeared on as a guest. There are exceptions; Twister is probably the best-known movie in which her music appeared. But even in the ‘90s, at her height, not a lot of people were putting Tori Amos in their movies or TV shows.

Myra Ellen Amos was once described by a friend’s boyfriend as looking like a Torrey pine, a critically endangered species of tree from the California coast near San Diego. She taught herself to play the piano as soon as she could reach it. At two, she was able to play songs she had heard only once. At three, she was writing her own songs. At five, she became the youngest person accepted into the Peabody Institute and at eleven became the youngest person expelled from it. She says this is because she was more interested in pop and rock than classical and because she didn’t want to read sheet music.

Amos is a phenomenally talented musician, in short. She has chromesthesia, a condition in which she sees music. For her, it’s structures of light. She says she’s never seen the same one twice. She’s been seeing these images since she was three, she says. She can play two keyboards at once on a song, moving back and forth between the two as needed for the different sounds she’s trying to create. When she was thirteen, she was already performing in piano bars and gay bars—chaperoned by her father, a Methodist minister.

Her songs are deeply personal. “Me and a Gun” is about being assaulted. (It turns out her fans believe myths about rape at a lower level than the general population.) “Spark” is about a miscarriage. “Jackie’s Strength” is about her fears about marriage. It’s clear she processes her feelings through music, which is perfectly understandable given how much of a prodigy she is. She’s been playing music and processing feelings for about the same length of time, if you think about it.

I’ve referred to myself as “straight by rounding error.” I’m capable of finding women attractive without being attracted to them. On the other hand, I find it impossible not to be attracted to Tori Amos, especially when she’s in the act of performing. I suspect that if you can watch her at the harpsichord or piano or something without finding her attractive you’re just not particularly attracted to women. It’s not just that she is a lovely woman. It’s the passion with which she performs, the intensity of her musicianship. Or maybe I’m just deeply drawn to talent.